Great Plaza Epidemic of '17
Summary The Great Plaza Epidemic of '17 was an event that occurred when the Scribblenauts Unlimited Punctuation Plaza stopped functioning for the majority of users. The Epidemic took place from February 9th, 2017, to June 19th, 2017. During this time, affected users could not download objects from the shops in Punctuation Plaza, upload objects to their own shop or update their shop in any way. Background Punctuation Plaza Punctuation Plaza is an in-game location in Scribblenauts Unlimited that allows players to download the custom objects of other players. Many Scribblers would often download the custom characters of other Scribblers and use them in their series. When the plaza stopped working it caused many Scribblers to lose the ability to download other people's characters, bringing many series' to a sudden grinding halt. Some users were able to continue their series because they had downloaded all the characters they needed, but for some users it was impossible to start up a series without remaking everyone else's characters. Prior Incidents In the days preceding the shutdown, the plaza had temporarily stopped working several times. These previous malfunctions were only temporarily, with the majority of them lasting no more than 24 hours. Causes The causes of the Epidemic have been debated among many Scribblers. It is thought today is that the Plaza was shut down due to lack of general maintenance, and the age of Scribblenauts Unlimited itself. The plaza still functioned for many users after it had stopped working months ago for others, so the plaza's network was clearly not shut down. It's likely the in-game plaza network remained unattended for many years, and a malfunction was bound to occur. Scribblenauts Unlimited developers 5th Cell had recently gone bankrupt during the time of the malfunction, so it's possible their bankruptcy had some hand in the malfunction. Aftermath Immediate Response Many users made panicked posts after the initial malfunction, but since the same issue had fixed itself after a few hours or days during prior incidents, other users assumed this incident would be no different than the others. They were proven to be wrong, and as time went on without repairs most believed the plaza would never return to it's previously functioning state. Series The production of series' was heavily effected by the Epidemic. Without a functioning plaza you could no longer download someone else's characters to put them in a series. This mean that if you wanted someone else's character you would have to remake them yourselves. This made the series making process difficult if you weren't very skilled at remaking someone's characters, or if you couldn't figure out what stamps someone used. This unanticipated new difficulty made the series making process more time-consuming, and it caused several users to either make less series' or give up on series making altogether. Unmasked Migration Some users believed the community was doomed or pointless without a functioning plaza, and many proposed the idea of using Scribblenauts Unmasked instead. Scribblenauts Unmasked was very similar to Scribblenauts Unlimited, and many users felt it's community was an ideal location to migrate to. But the issue with such a migration was that many Scribblers didn't have Unmasked, or the money to purchase it. Additionally, making series was far more difficult on Unmasked, you have to go to a set location to make and edit objects, and every time you left an area it would reset, meaning you'd have to set up a scene repeatedly every time that you had to edit or make a new object for that scene. The complications of moving to a whole different game and community were too inconvenient for most Scribblers to deal with, and so they stayed in the Unlimited community. Name Origins The Epidemic received it's name from William, who referred to the event with as The Great plaza Epidemic of '17 a few days after the malfunction had become widespread. Restoration On June 19th 2018, all users were suddenly able to use all of the Plaza's functions once more. This sudden restoration took the whole community by surprise, and the series making process had been returned to normalt. At the time of restoration, no users could find a reason as to why the restoration had occurred. It's possible the revival may have been linked to the development of Scribblenauts: Mega Pack, which is a port of Scribblenauts Unlimited and Unmasked that was released on September 18th, 2018 on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 systems. Gallery Plaza_Error.jpg|The error message a user would receive during the Epidemic Sammy_Plaza_Error.png|A post made by Sammy about the Epidemic Category:Events